debauchery

de·bauch·ery

noun \di-ˈbȯ-chə-rē, -chrē, -ˈbä-\

plural de·bauch·er·ies

Definition of DEBAUCHERY

1

a : extreme indulgence in sensuality

b plural : orgies

2

archaic : seduction from virtue or duty

Examples of DEBAUCHERY

1. He later regretted the debauchery of his youth.
2. He recalled the evening's debaucheries with regret.
3. Like St. Augustine carousing his student days away in fourth-century Carthage, [Thomas] Merton had succumbed to such physical and intellectual debaucheries as New York offered a Columbia undergraduate in the 1930's: wine, women and some Communist fellow-traveling. —Mark Silk, New York Times Book Review, 30 Mar. 1986
4. … they regard all music and everything pleasant as forms of debauchery, and will not confess to any knowledge or practice unless you can convince them that you are as abandoned a profligate as themselves. —Bernard Shaw, letter, 25 Nov. 1948
5. I have seen a dozen boys stretched on the grass within a circumference of fifty feet, all of them smoking cigarettes and reading dime novels. It was a scene of inspiring debauchery, even to the most craven spectator. —H. L. Mencken, Happy Days, 1940

Origin of DEBAUCHERY

(see ¹debauch)

First Known Use: 1642

Related to DEBAUCHERY

Synonyms

corruption, vice, depravity, immorality, iniquitousness, iniquity, libertinage, libertinism, licentiousness, profligacy, sin

Antonyms

morality, virtue

Related Words

bad, badness, blackness, evil, evildoing, ill, turpitude, villainy, wickedness, wrong; atrociousness, evilness, heinousness, sinfulness, unscrupulousness, viciousness, vileness, villainousness; devilry (or deviltry), fiendishness; corruptness, debasement, degeneracy, degeneration, depravedness, dissoluteness, dissolution; indecency, lasciviousness, lechery, lewdness, looseness, perversion, pervertedness, wantonness; abomination, anathema, taboo (also tabu); criminality, reprehensibleness; baseness, despicableness, dirtiness, lowness, meanness; lousiness, miserableness, wretchedness

Near Antonyms

good, right; honesty, honor, integrity, legitimacy, probity, rectitude, scrupulosity, scrupulousness, uprightness; goodness, righteousness, virtuousness; blamelessness; chastity, innocence, perfection, pureness, purity, spotlessness; cleanness, correctness, decency, decorousness, propriety, rightness, seemliness